Virginia couple adopts after viral pro-life post telling expectant mothers not to get abortion

rambot said:

That's true. And for those people who want a child, there are MANY who need a loving home.

There ARE options.

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The point isn't to give children a loving home. The point is to stop women from getting abortions.

Nithavela said:

This, I don't.

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For me, I don't find the issue very complicated.

Premise 1. All human beings are created in the image of God and possess inherent moral worth and value.
Premise 2. A new human being comes into existence at fertilization.

Conclusion: The 98.5 of abortions committed for convenience reasons are immoral.

of course there are many options:

1) the mother could give birth & raise her child
2) the mother could give birth & have a relative help raise the child
3) the mother could give birth & seek an adoption agency
she could do a closed adoption OR an open adoption where she could still be part of the child's life

she could also choose a couple from the many who wait to adopt an infant at various adoption agencies OR let the agency choose for her




Choose life, choose adoption

christine40 said:

of course there are many options:

1) the mother could give birth & raise her child
2) the mother could give birth & have a relative help raise the child
3) the mother could give birth & seek an adoption agency
she could do a closed adoption OR an open adoption where she could still be part of the child's life

she could also choose a couple from the many who wait to adopt an infant at various adoption agencies OR let the agency choose for her




Choose life, choose adoption

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Nobody is arguing against any of those options.

Brightmoon said:

Well at least they aren’t hypocrites. I like it when so called pro lifers put their money where their mouths are . They usually want to force women to go through pregnancies and births but cut welfare and other social programs that help low income children and women.

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This is false.

No it isn’t! This is a typical Republican stance. They call it socialism to fool the ignorant and rant on about welfare queens .

Mountainmanbob said:

Some sources estimate that there are about 2 million couples currently waiting to adopt in the United States — which means there are as many as 36 waitingfamilies for every one child who is placed for adoption.

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That may be true, but it doesn't take into account certain nuances about the nature of adoption in America.

If it were just as simple as "we have 20 kids who need to be adopted, and 20 waiting families", then things would just work themselves out organically for the most part.

We have over ~100,000 kids in the foster care system currently up for adoption (and waiting to be adopted) at any given time. + 400,000 kids who are in foster care, but considered to be above the "target age" for typical adoption programs and agencies.

If there were 2 million couples waiting and just wanting to be parents and give a kid a stable home, that number should be theoretically be close to 0 as the moment a kid hit the foster care system, there would be be a line of people chomping at the bit to adopt them.

The unpleasant part of the adoption system (that most don't necessarily like talking about) is the fact that many couples who are waiting, are waiting precisely because they have certain, let's call them, "aesthetic preferences" with regards to what they're looking for.

Many don't want a kid who's already above a certain age
Many don't want a kid with special needs
Many don't want a kid who's a different race


The other less-than-pleasant aspect is how certain adoption agencies conduct their business. We still have a dozen states that allow faith-based adoption organizations to deny adoptions to same sex couples and single parent households, who are six times more likely to adopt than that heterosexual couples.

So in regards to incentivizing adoption as a means to de-incentivize abortion, some attitudes need to change on both sides of the adoption process.

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christine40 said:

that is true & parents who adopt do have a choice

we even were able to put in our home study our preference for a girl which many not adopting would think is terrible

but we had the choice & since we were first time parents desired as young as possible child

she is a different race though as we adopted internationally
there were no kids under age 10 available in our state foster care when we were in the adoption process

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I'm not even saying that "having a choice" is a bad thing...at the end of the day, the parent adopting instead of not-adopting is still a net positive.

It's just that it's not as simple as some make it sound when they're trying to suggest when they use the current "adoption waiting list" statistics as an argument against abortion policies.

.

Brightmoon said:

No it isn’t! This is a typical Republican stance. They call it socialism to fool the ignorant and rant on about welfare queens .

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Well, let's not talk about the typical Democrat stance which is to deny the moral worth and value of the unborn and say that it's perfectly fine to kill them at any point before birth!

ThatRobGuy said:

That may be true, but it doesn't take into account certain nuances about the nature of adoption in America.

If it were just as simple as "we have 20 kids who need to be adopted, and 20 waiting families", then things would just work themselves out organically for the most part.

We have over ~100,000 kids in the foster care system currently up for adoption (and waiting to be adopted) at any given time. + 400,000 kids who are in foster care, but considered to be above the "target age" for typical adoption programs and agencies.

If there were 2 million couples waiting and just wanting to be parents and give a kid a stable home, that number should be theoretically be close to 0 as the moment a kid hit the foster care system, there would be be a line of people chomping at the bit to adopt them.

The unpleasant part of the adoption system (that most don't necessarily like talking about) is the fact that many couples who are waiting, are waiting precisely because they have certain, let's call them, "aesthetic preferences" with regards to what they're looking for.

Many don't want a kid who's already above a certain age
Many don't want a kid with special needs
Many don't want a kid who's a different race


The other less-than-pleasant aspect is how certain adoption agencies conduct their business. We still have a dozen states that allow faith-based adoption organizations to deny adoptions to same sex couples and single parent households, who are six times more likely to adopt than that heterosexual couples.

So in regards to incentivizing adoption as a means to de-incentivize abortion, some attitudes need to change on both sides of the adoption process.

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Out of curiosity, are you involved in foster care in some fashion? My wife and I have been foster parents for many years, and have had many children come through our home. As someone intimately involved, I can say that while what you said is true, a lot of it isn't actually relevant to the abortion issue as we are specifically talking about newborns.

In relation to newborns only, which is what is relevant in this discussion, there are more parents waiting and willing to adopt newborns than there are newborns available.

Thus, the lie that pregnant women are told is that either they will have to care for their child, or their child will be put into a broken foster system and that they would be better off killing the unborn. This is a lie. I can say with absolute certainty that any pregnant woman that wanted to plan on giving her baby up at birth could (and does) find a parent(s) that will adopt their baby.

ThatRobGuy said:

The other less-than-pleasant aspect is how certain adoption agencies conduct their business. We still have a dozen states that allow faith-based adoption organizations to deny adoptions to same sex couples and single parent households, who are six times more likely to adopt than that heterosexual couples.

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I personally think there is absolutely no problem with this. None at all.

In fact, I have to wonder why someone with a different worldview would even want to foster through a religious organization. The county is always looking for people to sign up to be foster parents. There are also plenty of non-religious private foster agencies that people can signup for if they don't want to foster through the county.

The bottomline is that every single person in America that wants to be a foster parent can be a foster parent. The fact that there are private foster organizations run by Christians doesn't mean that homosexual parents can't foster. And frankly, if I was a homosexual atheist, I wouldn't want to join a Christian foster agency anyway. The only people who pitch a fit about it are people who hate Christians, not people who actually want to foster and have a heart for hurting children.

SPF said:

Out of curiosity, are you involved in foster care in some fashion? My wife and I have been foster parents for many years, and have had many children come through our home. As someone intimately involved, I can say that while what you said is true, a lot of it isn't actually relevant to the abortion issue as we are specifically talking about newborns.

In relation to newborns only, which is what is relevant in this discussion, there are more parents waiting and willing to adopt newborns than there are newborns available.

Thus, the lie that pregnant women are told is that either they will have to care for their child, or their child will be put into a broken foster system and that they would be better off killing the unborn. This is a lie. I can say with absolute certainty that any pregnant woman that wanted to plan on giving her baby up at birth could (and does) find a parent(s) that will adopt their baby.

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If that were true, then we wouldn't have this kind of statistical breakdown in terms of the age of the children entering into the foster care system.

Children entering foster care by age group | KIDS COUNT Data Center

20% of the kids who enter are under age of 1
30% are between 1-5

According to another source:
In fiscal year 2017, infants entered foster care at a rate of 6.6 per 1,000, more than twice the 2.8 rate of children ages 4 to 17.

Yes, they're might be parents looking to scoop up an infant, but that really only addresses the age aspect I spoke of, it doesn't address the other to points about racial preferences, and preferences pertaining to special needs status.

It also doesn't address the fact that there are numerous gay couples looking to adopt (they actually are six times more likely to adopt than heterosexual couples), and 12 states (which also happen to contain 3 of the top 5 state rates of children entering the foster care system) allow religious organizations to run adoption agencies and deny adoptions to gay couples. In fact, according to some data, in some of those states, only 1 out 5 same sex adoption attempts were successful with the other 4 out of 5 being denied. If they really wanted to present adoption as a viable alternative to abortion, they'd cut it out with that because all that's doing is highlighting that this:

...seems to offend them more than abortion or a child growing up in the "system" for their entire lives.



When it comes to children entering the foster care system, the breakdown by race is as follows:
23 percent were Black or African-American. ƒ 21 percent were Hispanic (of any race). ƒ 9 percent were other races or multiracial.

Given that the abortion rates are highest among the groups that enter the adoption system and are the least likely to be adopted,
Abortion rates by race and ethnicity

...it's not entirely untrue to say that if a black woman is considering abortion, if she carries to term, and puts the newborn in the foster care system, there's a statistically significant chance the baby won't be adopted. Not using that as a justification for abortion...however, the inverse logic of "you should carry to term and put the baby up for adoption, because there are people who will adopt them right away" is not true in many cases.

I understand there's a strong religious objection to abortion, and I understand the reasons why...however, I don't think people should resort to misleading information in order to influence a person's decision one way or the other.

ThatRobGuy said:

If that were true, then we wouldn't have this kind of statistical breakdown in terms of the age of the children entering into the foster care system.

Children entering foster care by age group | KIDS COUNT Data Center

20% of the kids who enter are under age of 1
30% are between 1-5

According to another source:
In fiscal year 2017, infants entered foster care at a rate of 6.6 per 1,000, more than twice the 2.8 rate of children ages 4 to 17.

Yes, they're might be parents looking to scoop up an infant, but that really only addresses the age aspect I spoke of, it doesn't address the other to points about racial preferences, and preferences pertaining to special needs status.

It also doesn't address the fact that there are numerous gay couples looking to adopt (they actually are six times more likely to adopt than heterosexual couples), and 12 states (which also happen to contain 3 of the top 5 state rates of children entering the foster care system) allow religious organizations to run adoption agencies and deny adoptions to gay couples. In fact, according to some data, in some of those states, only 1 out 5 same sex adoption attempts were successful with the other 4 out of 5 being denied. If they really wanted to present adoption as a viable alternative to abortion, they'd cut it out with that because all that's doing is highlighting that this:

...seems to offend them more than abortion or a child growing up in the "system" for their entire lives.



When it comes to children entering the foster care system, the breakdown by race is as follows:
23 percent were Black or African-American. ƒ 21 percent were Hispanic (of any race). ƒ 9 percent were other races or multiracial.

Given that the abortion rates are highest among the groups that enter the adoption system and are the least likely to be adopted,
Abortion rates by race and ethnicity

...it's not entirely untrue to say that if a black woman is considering abortion, if she carries to term, and puts the newborn in the foster care system, there's a statistically significant chance the baby won't be adopted. Not using that as a justification for abortion...however, the inverse logic of "you should carry to term and put the baby up for adoption, because there are people who will adopt them right away" is not true in many cases.

I understand there's a strong religious objection to abortion, and I understand the reasons why...however, I don't think people should resort to misleading information in order to influence a person's decision one way or the other.

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I appreciate the statistics that you’ve been able to spend 30 minutes on google to aid you in your argument, but unfortunately your ignorance and real life knowledge of the actual reality shines through to those of us living in and supporting the foster system.

Your statistics about the number of under 1 year old children that go into foster care is certainly true. My wife and I have fostered hundreds of newborns! We’ve had preemies and 4 day old babies multiple times. All these children contribute to those statistics.

do you know what you’re missing? Those children were taken from their mother and placed into foster care. You presented your information as if to suggest that all children in foster care are actually eligible for adoption. They’re not. They all eventually were reunited with either their parents or family members who took custody.

So again, trust me when I say there are more parents available willing to adopt newborns than there are newborns available.

And again with regards to religious foster agencies... It’s just plain stupid for people to say they should be forced to allow anyone to join their agency who wants be a foster parent. Why? Because anyone CAN be a foster parent of the county. Counties are in desperate need of foster parents.

Again I wonder why a homosexual would want to join a private foster organization who’s leadership thinks they are going to hell and living a life of sin. I sure wouldn’t want to join that group. I would go to the county.

100% of eligible adults who want to foster can foster. Counties are in desperate need of more foster parents.

Nithavela said:

The point isn't to give children a loving home. The point is to stop women from getting abortions.

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Or, depending on which posts you read, to make women face consequences for having sex.

I can't remember where I read it from or hear it from:

We strive to call traces of what is perceived as microscopic bacteria found in other planets signs of life but the beginning of human forming in the womb is not called so.

Apparently forming babies are not worth the honor of being called signs of life at least by some.